One key to successfully operating a business is the effectiveness of the training delivered to employees. The character and quality of the instructors are critical elements of that effectiveness. Also crucial is supporting management and instructors with tools that enable delivery of consistent, high-quality, job-related instruction and support. Equally critical is providing management and instructors with a method of assessing the effectiveness of the delivery of such job-related instruction.
Existing systems and methods for workforce planning and occupational readjustment have traditionally relied on manual analysis of an individual's skills, with little or no emphasis on job-related analysis or needs analysis of the employer. Additionally, the current state of the art fails to link training resources and employer goals as part of an overall approach.
Although formal training programs and systems, job experience, and an understanding of procedural requirements can help an employee, there is little systemic help available to provide an assurance to an employer that the employee possesses the necessary knowledge and skills to perform the particular tasks or duties associated with the job in which the employee is operating. Where such employee skills-assessment systems are in place, there is little assessment of the direct impacts of knowledge or skills on job performance, overall employee performance, employer goals and objectives, or the company bottom line.
Current state-of-the-art training assessment is directed toward assessing the employee retention of trained knowledge and skills, with no measure of the effectiveness of the training itself. Such systems do not assess the effect of any subsequent transfer of knowledge or skills on the job-specific performance of the employee. Further, such systems do not assess the impact of any changes in performance on the employer-specific goals. Lastly, such impacts remain unassessed in relation to direct and indirect bottom line return on investment (ROI) in occupational readjustment. As such, there is a need for an effective way to quantify the impact of training and other events, on actual job performance instead of merely testing to see whether select knowledge or skills, which may have no impact on performance, are improved by the training.